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EmagGeek writes "I live in a semi-rural micropolitan area that generally has good access choices for high speed Internet. However, there are holes in the coverage in our area, and I live in one of them. There is infrastructure nearby, but because our subdivision covenants require all utilities to be underground, telecoms won't even consider upgrading to modern technology. The result is that we're all stuck with legacy DSL (which AT&T has happily re-branded as U-Verse even though it isn't) as our only choice for wireline access. There is a competing cable company in the area, also with infrastructure nearby, but similarly they are reluctant to even discuss burying new cable in our 22-home subdivision. Has anyone been in this same predicament and been able to convince a nearby ISP to run new lines? If so, how did you do it? Our neighborhood association could really use some pointers on this because we hit a new brick wall with every new approach we try — stopping just short of burying our own cable and hoping they'll at least be willing to run a line to the pole at the end of the street and drop it into our box."

Comcast in our area was willing to run the line to an office if we paid for the cost of running the line. At the time they needed a new distribution hub with it so the cost was $60k+. 2 years later they changed their tune and did it for free in return for a 2 or 3 year business class internet contract.

Chances are good you'd need a hub in your subdivision so it isn't like running a single cable and daisychaining the houses will work. If you can get commitments from enough of the neighbors however, you may be able to get somewhere with the company. 10 homes wanting $100/mo cable+internet adds up to $1200/mo and $14,400/yr. That might get them interested. 5 of you wanting $40/mo Internet only isn't likely to get them interested.

To the OP, you can't bury lines; all you can do is bury a duct bank and give a pull string for the telco. Unfortunately, they will require dedicated pathways, so you can't have competing providers in the same conduit or boxes. If they aren't even amenable to that, provide your own network and build an "association clubhouse [lowes.com]" at the main street. Get the fastest service (or two) to that point, and distribute out on the network.

In TFS, it says that the subdivision covenants require that all utilities be buried. Depending on the exact wording of the covenants, it may be possible for the HOA to change them or that they may expire at some point. IIRC, the covenants that cover the development I live expire in something like 2018 (house built in 2002), so at least some are time limited.

The reality is that it really, REALLY depends on where the poster lives. Some states and/or municipalities have seriously reigned in the power of HOAs a

In California, part of the resistance comes from the fact that buried cable is subject to property tax, while overhead line is not. (Or so I was told by an engineer at the power company, when I was investigating costs to bring in utilities.)

No, neither business nor engineering. This is a social decision.This area has decided that all services must be buried, even services added later - which means large costs to dig up etc.A far seeing town council would have emplaced buried pipes large enough for future services, but these were just fools. Now all their residents suffer the need, and there are probably enough regressive farts to stall any changes to the rules.

Also, if you are paying for it yourself, why go with cable? Normally the cable companies just go in with an underground torpedo (yes, just like in the ocean, a big projectile that rockets through the ground) and shoot the thing toward the destination. They occasionally hit water lines, power lines, and other infrastructure. Then they hunt for it on the other end and hook things up.

If you are serious about doing it, avoid cable. Hook up the neighborhood with fiber to each home. It isn't that much more expensive if you are going to tear up the streets anyway, and is far more valuable in the long run. You will still need someone to hook up the neighborhood to the grid, but once the fiber is in place, connecting the neighborhood's hub to a CO is pretty easy.

Look up "directional boring" and "plowing" and forget that torpedo idea. With directional boring you can have the bore hole come out right where you want it. With plowing there's no need to "look" for the cable (or pipe or whatever) - it's there.

Contractors are required by law to have all underground utilities located before they start. Hitting a water line or gas line can cost them a bunch of time and money. They're a lot more careful nowadays, though sometimes the utility companies miss on their locations.

Normally the cable companies just go in with an underground torpedo (yes, just like in the ocean, a big projectile that rockets through the ground) and shoot the thing toward the destination.

Say whaaaat?!!! You're just fucking with us, right? I've never heard of such a thing, and the amount of energy to file a projectile underground and maintain enough moment to push dirt aside would be tremendous! Are you sure you're not just talking about typical horizontal boring machines? Back when I had to work with ca

Learn the laws if you state too. In many states you have rights to "enjoy your property" lots of thoes HOA agreements don't exactly get a solid legal review before they are enacted. I know people that have successful challenged various provisions in court and had them found to be I unenforceable, be careful with that through there are hefty attorney fees to be encountered there, and if you do prevail against the HOA you might not get invited to the next block party

In many areas, HOA-controlled neighborhoods are all that have been built for quite a while now... My home is in one of the very last traditional neighborhoods built in my suburb/city; all of the homes built here after ~1980 are either apartments, condos, or HOA-controlled houses on tiny plots of land.:-(

This, and access requirements. The article says "our subdivision covenants require all utilities to be underground, " that's not a normal subdivision, it's controlled by an HOA and they control access from the edge of the development to the individual lots. It's basically the same thing as a trailer park except each person who owns a plot has an ownership stake/voice in the HOA- there isn't public right-of-way like there is in a non-covenant development.

When these types of developments are originally being built, the contractor will generally offer the local ISP's/telco's the chance to come run their lines while the trenches are open. In most cases local companies which already service the area will even come out drop their copper into the trenches for free, which is most likely how the DSL got there, but in some cases they HOA or original developer has to pay them. (Especially if you want fiber instead of copper).

So the first part of the answer is- you're going to have to work with the HOA no matter what. The ISP is not likely to pay to open trench and/or push conduit without being paid to do so, and HOA's can be extremely difficult to deal with at times depending on the membership. The HOA probably wants the ISP to pay to run the lines and landscape it afterwards, and the ISP probably wants the HOA to do it themselves or pay them to do it.

The best route to go is consult with the HOA and if there's support for it, have the HOA itself approach the ISP's Construction Manager, possible speak with someone who works on Business accounts. Once they understand the HOA is on board, they will be more willing to prepare an actual Quote to get services run.

But it's also possible the HOA worked out an exclusive deal with the existing DSL provider, where they won't allow anyone else to run lines in exchange for the ISP 'freeing out' the construction/build-out fees.

Good Luck!

Side Note- this is one of the reasons why I really hate HOA's and would never buy property in a covenant development.

I work for a cable company and sat near the Commercial Dev agents for several years it was not uncommon for them to negotiate deals to lay new construction. Many communities opted for bulk agreements as part of the deal that required some basic level of service for all members for a number of years resulting in the cable company willing to cover a larger portion of the construction cost, sometimes all of it.

YepOption 1) Use your vast political machine to convince congress to once again smash the HOA's in the mouth and allow it.Option 2) You kill enough people in your community they vote to allow it a)or vote to pay for the underground wires
b) or the remaining bleaters all leave and you ARE the
HOA and you can do what you want.Option 3) You destroy the local telecom and plunder all of it's accounts of cold hard cash, lau

In many places who ever did the subdivision originally, deeded all of that underground wire or piping to the city, or to the home owners association (if there is one) or to who ever they contracted for putting tin the original DSL. (AT&T apparently). If those owners won't allow use of the in ground infrastructure for a new purpose, you have to build new parallel plumbing.

In that event, the cost of permitting, call before you dig, trenching, tunneling under driveways, etc can be so expensive they would never get payback, and the risk of destroying everything already in the ground is significant Everything from street lamp wiring, gardens, sprinkler systems, water pipes, etc.

I've seen it done, but there usually has to be a city wide project to get this to happen. Enough work to make it worth employing a professional crew and providing months of work.

You might have better luck getting all 22 homeowners to go on on a private conduit installation, with a bigger than needed conduit (or maybe just armored fiber) to each premises, all terminating at some common (and accessible) location. You'd have to pay for the trenching and materials, but it isn't that expensive, especially if you cover the liability aspects.

Actually, they want a certain number of base subscribers in your neighborhood to "pre-order", then they'll charge you the ridiculous amount of money to run the lines in your neighborhood, then they profit off the service and the nickel and diming they'll do to you on boxes, converters and DVRs.

Because all the big dogs on your borders will do everything they can to make it a living hell for you. The big dogs would see what you're doing, move into the area and crush you. In the end you will have lost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A few years back my company use to resell AT&T DSL. AT&T would charge us ~$30/month for each account. Now how could we get customers and make some sort of profit on that when the customers can go directly to AT&T to get the same, if not faster, s

And by "crush" you mean, what? AT&T is going to come in with a backhoe and dig up his lines? Derp! If they wanted into his neighborhood's market, it is currently open, it would cost them less now than if there is local competition. You can't just make DSL cheaper to compete for the customers that want faster connections. Obviously if you're just trying to re-sell what is already available in the neighborhood, you're in a bad position. Totally different than running your own cable.

AT&T could refuse to sign up to the neighborhood infrastructure unless everyone paid for a normal account with AT&T. The HOA (or OP) would have to eat the costs of burying and building all of the mini-ISP's infrastructure.

AT&T could refuse to sign up to the neighborhood infrastructure unless everyone paid for a normal account with AT&T. The HOA (or OP) would have to eat the costs of burying and building all of the mini-ISP's infrastructure.

They could go to the state and get a law passed that HOAs and public interest groups are not allowed to provide ISP service. Like they did in South Carolina to municipalities. Next they'll go to the FCC and get them to reclassify ISPs are common carriers so that it's impossible to make new competitors due to regulatory hurtles.

Hmm. How about just suspending a thin piece of fiber optic cable around the neighborhood on poles? Of course OP and several neighbors may have to convert to Judaism to apply for a religious exemption for their eruv...

Did this once! 2003 or so. Had a workplace with a bitchin' high-speed internet backbone situated at the bottom of a mountain ridge about a mile away from where I lived. My roommate and I we were poor 20-year-olds and wanted fast internet without the cost. We climbed the foothills of the mountain and affixed an antenna on the mountainside using highly directional antennas to give us free high-speed internet at home. We used fancy stuff like spotting scopes and lasers to help us align the two antennas. The antenna on the house was lashed to the fireplace with aluminum bands.

It was a lot of fun to set up, but it didn't work very well. No matter how we tried to stabilize the setup, weather fucked with us. High winds caused things to wobble, which meant packet loss, and slowdowns. And when it would go down completely, one of us would have to - with an exasperated sigh - get in the car and drive a mile away and climb a hillside and check out the setup while the other person climbed on the roof... while communicating to each other with walkie-talkies because it was 2003 and we were poor. We eventually ended up springing for some DSL provider, I don't even remember which.

I don't know about the details in Kansas City, but in Massachusetts, when Verizon was doing the FiOS roll-out, the typical franchise agreement with each town required that they offer service to every resident within five years of the initial agreement. This typically meant that those with above-ground utilities got it in the first year, and everyone else had to wait until the fourth or fifth year.

You need to talk to your elected officials in town. Find out when the license is up for renewal. It may be a ten-year deal with the town (that's not unusual). Push hard to have the town require universal access to all residents within a reasonable time as a condition on any license renewal.

The simple fact is that, taken as a whole, most towns with a mix of above and below-ground utilities still result in a profit for cable companies when they have to install service to all neighborhoods. Below-ground utilities alone are still profitable, but the payback is longer, so they prefer to invest in infrastructure elsewhere.

You've got a 22 home sub, and everyone wants better Internet run. Change the covenants, if that's what it takes, sounds like you have the support. It sounds like there's already coax - it's not clear why a cable ISP couldn't run high speed service over that, or why you think they would need new cable.

Changing covenants [wikipedia.org] is not easy by design. Covenants are usually imposed by someone else, usually the local government, to allow the project to go forward. If they were easily changeable by the HOA it would be a bylaw not a covenant.

Covenants are usually imposed by someone else, usually the local government, to allow the project to go forward. If they were easily changeable by the HOA it would be a bylaw not a covenant.

Covenants are usually created by the HOA - usually by the developer who is creating the homes and has 100% control of the HOA at it's beginning. If the local government wants to impose a restriction, they create ordinances.

To change covenants usually isn't "easy" - but it's doable. The problem is getting everyone to ag

The problem is getting everyone to agree to the change. (or at least a lot of the people)...

Your first statement is usually right. The *only* way where you can get away with changing the CC&R's without 100% of the lot owners agreeing to it is *if* the existing CC&R's have a way to edit them that doesn't require everybody to agree. I've read a lot of CC&R's in my area and I've NEVER found one that allowed modifications so I'm assuming that is extremely rare.

In the US covenants are almost always contractual conditions imposed by a private party that are signed as a (perpetual) condition of purchase or transfer. Generally this is where the developer builds a "subdivision" all at once, and forms a "neighborhood association" composed of some of the original owners. They come up with a list of things that can't (or have to be) done with the property; common ones in my area are restrictions on removing trees (without some sort of vote by the association), banning of manufactured homes, parking restrictions on private roads, stricter "quiet hours" than the municipal code provides, and in some cases even a ban on building a house from the same design as any existing house in the neighborhood.

Sometimes even the allowed colors of homes are controlled. It is almost unrestricted. Here in the US, there is actually very limited things that the local government can do with regards to property restrictions. Arbitrary restrictions are generally thrown out by the courts, as are things that restrict your freedom of speech. However, a neighborhood association is not a government, and since the restrictions are contractual in nature, you can include a wide variety of severe, arbitrary, and speech-related restrictions.

The problem usually isn't getting 76% to agree, it's getting 76% to care enough to show up to the meeting and vote at all. Most homeowners don't go to HOA/COA meetings and in terms of changing covenants, an abstention is usually treated as a no vote.

I had one critical advantage. Our HOA board members were being complete dicks about the clause in question(*) - so much so that the management company (a third party paid by the HOA to run things in accordance with state law) was sympathetic to me, a new home owner, and advised me on the exact process for changing the covenant.

With their advice, my wife and I created a one-page proxy form which we took door-to-door and got our neighbors to sign, one at a time. It took a month, but we eventually got proxie

Really, it's the only way. Pay them to do the work. It will cost you at least $3-5K per household.
The only alternative is to go to your locality's cable commission, and find out if/when the cable provider's license is up for renewal. Make 100% coverage a non-negotiable requirement for renewal.

Covenants can be very difficult to change. In developments, the local government is usually a party to the covenant and must agree, and sometimes pass bylaws, to changing it. The covenant was probably places on the development to keep its rural flavor. Since there is an alternative, burying the cable, I doubt the covenant would be dropped. If it was changeable by the residents it would be a bylaw and not a covenant. There are ways to remove covenants [wikipedia.org] but they are not easy.

No, just no. I had Clearwire for a while in downtown Seattle. While the speed was great since it was nearly 50 times faster than CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) DSL, it was actually slower in practice because of the horrific latency and packet loss. I know it's hard to believe, but the typical Seattle less than 1 Mbps DSL line was more pleasant to use than the Clearwire connection that was fifty times faster on paper. Wired is just that much better than wireless.

It's really expensive to bury lines, something like 10x the cost of above ground lines in some cases. The only way you're gonna get them to do it is if your neighborhood ponies up the money. The other alternative is to change the C&Rs to allow above ground, and even then they'll only do it if they're gonna make more money than what it costs.

stopping just short of burying our own cable and hoping they'll at least be willing to run a line to the pole at the end of the street and drop it into our box.

Well, if you want it badly enough, then that may be pretty much what you have to do (or at least bear the cost of it). You're dealing with a for-profit company, not a charity, so from a business perspective why would they spend the money when they have no hope of making enough to cover it in the foreseeable future?

Step 2 Offer a substantial bribe (hot pizza & a cold pop, your wife's promiscuous sister's affections, whatever...you may ho for hbo) to the serviceman who arrives at your domicile after a request for service

Step 3 After winning the technician's heart, convince him that you and yours are worthy of the hookup.

Move somewhere without these types of covenants and this type of association. Sounds a little bit like you're getting what you deserve or you didn't do the research before moving in.

Ham radio operators have been dealing with this since I was licensed in 1991 and probably much earlier. Move somewhere, they forbid you from erecting an antenna, and you can't set up your station, public service or otherwise.

Perhaps you have been too quick to dismiss DSL. I assume that currently your DSLAM is not very close to the neighborhood and therefore AT&T can only offer the slower DSL speeds. Perhaps you can convince AT&T to install a fiber fed DSLAM near the border of your neighborhood. If there is fiber in the area this can be done without digging up your neighborhood. With current DSL technology (VDSL2) they could offer much higher speeds (up to 100 Mbit down, but more likely 20-40 Mbit). This can be done over

DSL capability depends on distance to the nearest (hub/station/whatever). We tried that but were barely in DSL range (15,000 feet or so as the cable goes). It ran at 768 kbps max and was pretty bad. If you're closer the speeds etc gets better, if you're close enough to the closest station you can (I heard) get 25 mbps.

RIght. That nearest hub/station/whatever is called a DSLAM. A DSLAM can be installed near or in your neighborhood and fed by fiber. I have a fiber fed DSLAM in my neighborhood and I subscribe to a 40 Mbit VDSL2 service. I'm less than 1000 feet from the DSLAM, as are most of the people in our neighborhood. The generic "DSL" covers a wide range of service. The fact is that many people can only get 1.5 Mbit (or even only 256 Kbit) service, so they assume that (or 5-7 Mbit, which is the next tier typically avai

There are two options HOAs can access high speed Internet or other telecom services.

Option 1: Poll your neighbors and determine who will sign up for what services if they where available. Write down their contact info, what services they want and take it to a local telco office. Tell them you want to speak with a business sales rep. Tell them your need and provide a copy of the document. They should be able to justify the build-out based on the number of signed service agreements. The standard ROI is two years. So your neighbors will have to be okay with the services they receive for at least two years. This has been numerous times with multiple carriers. So if you get push back from the sales rep speak to their manager. Trust me, they want to make the sale!

Option 2: Install it yourself then contact the provider for bulk services. In bulk arraignments the savings is sufficient to payoff the build-out within 18-24 months if you farmed out the build and maintenance. ROI is much less if you do it yourself. I have some MDU properties with 100/50Mbps service out to each apartment.

Yep. Members of my HOA were harassed by the board of directors back when minidishes started popping up. We invoked the 1996 telecommunication act and dared them to take us to court. They dropped the issue.

WISP will get you the mesh, but you still need a big pipe to the internet. If the neighborhood is close enough to an area that does have broadband, maybe you can work something out with them. Set up a LLC and become your own ISP.

Find someone who can get 50mb+ cable/dsl that is near your subdivision and put up a mesh network connecting the homes with that site. Get a VPS that is geographically near you or in the normal path for your internet traffic with sufficient ip addresses that you tunnel back to your subdivision. Instant ISP, the cable/dsl guys will just see tons of VPN traffic and never know....

Our Telcom told me they would put fiber up to me if I paid for it. A mile and a half. I put in 12 pair phone underground wire laid on top of the ground inside 1" black plastic water line 25 years ago and it has lasted well. This was back before DSL when we had 14Kbaud modems or so - ripping faster than the old 300baud modems which were definitely better than throwing rocks or smoke signals.:)

I'm trying to get them to just let me run the fiber through my existing 1" water line pipes which has plenty of bandwidth.:)

1 Consider getting enough neighbors to split the cost (depends on what the cost is of course).
2 Wait until somebody else pays to get it closer to your area.
3 Get them to give a credit (50% in my case) for future service of the money paid to bring the cable in. Have them agree that's transferable to subsequent owners if the cost is high enough to bother with.
4 Look at alternatives
- satelite internet (slow and VERY laggy but otherwise usable, can't do online gaming though).
- cell phone data plan (low d

Economics. Burying is going to cost a lot. The ISPs would have to borrow money now to pay the diggers, and hope that they can recoup the cost in the long run. The up-front cost is like $2000 per city lot. The ISPs are unlikely to foot the bill, even though interest rates are at record lows.

As long as the local electricity is provided by a Coop you should be able to get it. You might have to get all your neighbors to sign up as well but you get a Gig fiber connection to your house( called an ONT ) and you pay for whatever bandwidth they decide to sell. Usually 10, 25, 50 and 100 megabit business service. It works really good.

You say your electricity comes from a local monopoly like Consumers Energy, well I guess you will have to wait 2 decades and they might have it, they are just a little

Put together a Home Owners Association and collect dues. Use the money collected to pay for moving the utilities underground. Or, you may be able to get your city to bond the project. This would mean higher property taxes, at least in your area.

With a 22 home subdivision, there is no way it is going to pay for the utility Companies to do this on their own.

I work for a phone company. The only way to do it is pay for it yourself. Which is actually an option. We get businesses that will move into an area and want larger data-pipes and they just end up paying to have the cable laid. I think though, that after you get the estimates on the costs, you'll quickly realize why they have no desire to upgrade your trunking. It's upwards of a million dollars a mile... then take the number of people in your neighborhood, multiply that times what you pay per month, then divide the cost of laying the cable by that, and I bet you're looking at 40yrs before it pays itself off. By then there will be a new technology that you'll be bitching at them for not installing.

I've heard that $1M/mile number thrown around, but in the context of putting all utilities underground. Most of that cost is for the electric lines that probably have to be put in deeper with a backhoe. When they put in the FiOS lines in our neighborhood, they used the same equipment that they would use to put in a sprinkler system. The conduit is probably two feet down. Probably the most expensive part was repaving where they had to cut through sidewalks and driveways.

Utilities companies are cheapskates. In Australia, and I'm sure it's probably similar in America, the power companies here are still reluctant to bury power cables that arc, ignite bush fires and then kill people.

I'm not saying what you are trying to achieve is impossible, but however you attempt to achieve it you are up for a lot of hard work.

Franchises such as cable providers are required to pull lines to all people is a territory. In exchange for being the only cable company, the cable company is typically required to provide services to everyone regardless of the cost.
Google to find out the complaint department for your state franchise authority and place a complaint. I did this is the past and was quickly provided with cable access, even though they had to pull additional lines to reach me.

Franchises such as cable providers are required to pull lines to all people is a territory. In exchange for being the only cable company, the cable company is typically required to provide services to everyone regardless of the cost.

The HOA's burial requirement nullifies this by eliminating the public right of way from inside their development.
A covenant development falls outside the franchise, and in general: the HOA will have to make a deal with the utility, and pay the utility for the installation o

We got a petition, so they would know how much money they could earn, thus know the investment would pay off. Took a year, we got underground cable. Persistence and organization won the day. This was just over 10 years ago with Time Warner and we all lived on 4 acre lots. 40+ of us.

it's the only way they bother. Either the gov't pays for it and gives it away free for a private company to monetize, or the gov't requires the private company to pay for it in exchange for the revenue. Either way it pretty much boils down to the gov't paying for it.

I'm not complaining. I'm in favor of infrastructure investment. Just don't expect them to bother if it's their money on the line and they're not promised a tonne of long term profits (and a bail out if those profits never materialize). The k

Easy, show them the capital expendature will increase reveneu enough that the margin between the operating costs and the reveneu by enough to make back the capital expendature or thereabouts (smallish sunk costs are ok) within a year or two.

A ways back when I was still living with my parents, a neighbor moved in & was getting really excited about trying to get cable (TV) into the neighborhood. A main line passed by our street with a dozen houses on it. Not sure what all he did, but ended up getting the cable company to agree to put it in. The deal was he had to get a certain number of houses (half maybe) to cough up a couple hundred bucks & agree to some relatively normal 1 or 2 year commitment. He did & we ended up getting cable a little while later. A few years after I moved out the cable company ended up getting bought out & offering Internet access (don't remember if it was in that order, it was a good number of years ago).
Basically you have to make it worth their while. Find out what their current rates are & see if you can get a significant number of your neighbors to promise to commit to a 1 or 2 year plan if the company will put in the new cable plant. That might get their attention.
The cost of cable/wire is pretty cheap to the cost of labor & right of way issues. You might want to try & get fibre rather than coax put in.

Your 22 houses represent a very, very small market to the carriers, and your neighborhood decided to be cute and require all utilities be underground... Guess what, your 22 possible customers are too few to interest any carrier in even submitting paperwork to bury cables.

Can you even guarantee that all 22 houses will buy into whatever carrier you can convince to serve your neighborhood?

You should have buried the cables when you built the neighborhood, then you'd have a fighting chance to convince a carrier to serve your neighborhood.

Someone wanted a subsivisiion to look a very specific way (no overhead cables) and didnt plan things out?
When the subidvision is being built laying underground cable is still expensive, but a lot cheaper then when the area is built out.

What exactly is a "a semi-rural micropolitan area"?
A place where "hipsters" live? Oh, i dont live in a subdivision like you do, i live in a "a semi-rural micropolitan area"

"a micropolitan area is a geographic entity used for statistical purposes based on counties and county-equivalents"

So basically, a subdivision in an unicorporated area of a county. Some place that interesting enough for him to live, but not a sufficient source of sales tax revenue for the area to have been finger-annexed by a municipality so they can collect sales tax from there.

Basically: suburbia, or as the communications industry has been calling it since the 1980's "The last mile", which is a place no

This is actually a real solution. Internet access is important nowadays. People move for a lot less, like to appear to have better life to their family or get their children into what looks to be a better school.

One would think that for someone who views reliable and fast internet access as an important factor in quality of life, moving to get better internet would be up with those reasons to move in terms of importance.

(I live what I preach. I moved into the house that gets 21mbps connection on ADSL2+ which theoretically maxes out on 24mpbs back when adsl2+ was newest of the new in internet over POTS lines).

You may run afoul of the exclusive deal the cable company has for your town...

Would the rest of your town be willing to abandon their current cable company so that your 22 house neighborhood can enjoy better internet connections and no unsightly poles? I suspect not, and I suspect the cable company knows this, so you have no leverage over the cable company to get what you want...

You may run afoul of the exclusive deal the cable company has for your town...

Would the rest of your town be willing to abandon their current cable company so that your 22 house neighborhood can enjoy better internet connections and no unsightly poles? I suspect not, and I suspect the cable company knows this, so you have no leverage over the cable company to get what you want...

Exclusive deals don't come into play in areas the company does not cover.